At 00:54 8/19/01, Dave wrote:
[many suggestions; see original posting]
Dave,
Have you ever owned a server, email system, or BBS before?
I have, and I was ultimately responsible for the content of everything that
flowed into, through and out of it, whether I was able to monitor it all or
not (this was totally impractical; indeed impossible). Didn't matter
whether I killed it afteward; I had liability and culpability for anything
that shouldn't be there, and for any length of time no matter how short . .
. period . . . along with the perpetrator. What follows is based on my
experience of about seven years of doing it.
I've emailed this privately to Giles and Shawn before, and will now
publicly applaud their basic hands-off policy. This is a very hard thing
to do; emphasis on very hard. It's what makes it *our* list even though
it's really *their* list operating out of their server. Anything more than
intervening with clearly beyond any possible doubt, the most outrageous and
egregious behavior imaginable, only runs the risk of being labeled a censor
and can create a Holy War of its own. I found with systems I operated in
the past that letting users police themselves, exerting peer pressure to do
so, and developing their own consensus about what was generally acceptable
was the best possible policy. In seven years with hundreds of users
intervention was only required twice for behavior that was not legally
allowed, and only one individual was ultimately booted off (from one of the
incidents).
Bottom line:
A very, very few rules are better. Allow it to be the *users* list and you
will have many users. Insist on it being the *owners* list, even though
there may be a committee, or panel, or whatever you call it to make content
and behavior decisions and you will also have politicking, sucking up to
the "powers that be," and the *appearance* of a "class society" on the
system, with insiders who are chummy with those in charge and outsiders who
are not, along with ultimately only a few users. Perception is everything
to the beholder; doesn't matter if it's true or not.
I know where your heart is with your suggestion . . . to make this a better
place. IMO it won't get the results you want, but only frustration.
-- John
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